Because of facts

British comedian and President Obama's newest nominee to the supreme court, David Mitchell, on climate change and the boring realities of it.

When in doubt, quit.

There's been a well worn pattern for legislation over the past few years. Democrats attempt to address a pressing issue. Republicans, seeing that the successful addressing of said issue could make Democrats popular, throw all their weight into opposing it and filibustering it. In the mad dash to get 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, Democrats water the bill down to the point where all neutral observers are angered and disappointed. Bill that addresses tragically little of the original idea they meant to fix eventually passes to overblown fanfare. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Anyone want to guess how that pattern worked out for climate change legislation and energy policy? Surprise!!!! They just ended up quitting.

Light it on fire, and let its carbon pollution soar into the sky unrestricted: climate change legislation is dead.

At a press conference this afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), the Democrats' top climate and energy negotiator, acknowledged officially, and with obvious disappointment, that they lack the votes to pass legislation limiting carbon pollution, and that forthcoming energy legislation will be extremely narrow, in a bid to overcome a GOP filibuster.
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In the meantime, Reid said, the Senate will proceed imminently with a much smaller bill that will tackle four goals:

It will deal with BP and oil spill liability, invest in the manufacturing of natural gas vehicles, create a jobs program -- formerly called Cash for Caulkers, now called Home Star -- aimed at increasing home efficiency, and put money back in the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

Well done! Round of applause. I'm sure this problem will fix itself. Mother Earth will look at this inaction and no longer wait for the government to fix things. She'll decide to pull herself up by her own bootstraps and become self-reliant. Plus, who needs a new energy policy? We're fine right now depending on the most volatile region in the world to supply us with underground dinosaur blood.

Is their a comic addendum that sounds tin eared in its naivete?

"President Obama called me before this meeting and said, point blank, he is committed to working in these next days at a more intensive pace...to help bring together the ability to find 60 votes for that comprehensive legislation," Kerry said.

Yeah, I'm sure Republicans will be real eager to jump on board with that one. I mean sure, they wanted no part of this bill now, but a week or two from now, closer to the elections, is when they'll all stop making political hay out of this, get serious, start believing science and scientists, and get serious about governing.

Hmm, I wonder if there's a recent scientific report with charts that comically underlines the depth of failure and inaction by our elected betters?

According to NASA, 2010 is on course to be the planet’s hottest year since records started in 1880. The current top 10, in descending order, are: 2005, 2007, 2009, 1998, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2004, 2001 and 2008.

Hot is the new normal.

Hah! It's funny because we'll all be dead of heat stroke soon. Bang up job, Senate!

Cheap Blogging Crutch 07.14

Modern Toss' Periodic Table of British Swearing. Click to embiggen you 71 with 76 and a 79.

Maybe you were clued into this fact when you went outside last week and your brain melted, your shirt soaked through, and you begged unsuccessfully for God to kill you immediately, but it was fucking hot. The hottest January to June in recorded history. If you were one of those douches who complain the global warming is a myth or hoax or were one of those shitbags who was yelling how there couldn't be global warming because there was so much snow over the winter, know this: next time it hits 90 and I have to listen to one of you jerkoffs spout off about Al Gore, I'm lighting you on fire. Spread the word.

In The World Is Full of Deadbeat Scum News, remember all that money every country pledged to Haiti and then patted themselves on the back for, it's citizens clapping and cheering for the gesture and then never bothering to ever check back on to see how Haiti was doing? Turns out only 1.9% of that money has made it to Haiti. Not that it matters. That money was about making us feel better, not Haiti. And we do feel better. What's Haiti? Haven't even thought about it in months. Mission accomplished.

Are you one of those people who thinks that a gas station sandwich is too luxurious a gastronomic delicacy to partake in? Good news, that's why science has created Candwich: the Sandwich in a can. Maybe the idea of eating a BBQ chicken sandwich in a Mountain Dew can doesn't seem appealing, but did I mention there was a candy surprise? On the bright side, this product is the result of SEC fraud and a real estate swindle, and how many awful foodstuffs can say that?

If you had to guess where the nexus of dumb parents, dumb school districts, fear of technology, misunderstanding of technology, misunderstanding of drugs, and fear of youth gone wild was, Oklahoma would have to come up early in the discussion right? That's where a school district is under the grip of kids downloading and listening to "digital drugs" and "i-dosers", sounds/songs that are supposed to create a drug like euphoria. *sighs* This sounds like a town ripe for the taking from a shady monorail salesman. Whatever happened to huffing gas and listing to Dark Side of the Moon? I think everyone should just abide by my one rule: technology is a witch, burn it. It is responsible for the Candwich after all.

As some of you are aware, the threat of robot attack is constant. But today I bring you news of an even greater threat: psychic warrior octopi. Of course we are referring to Paul, a German octopus who correctly predicted the last eight World Cup matches. Some might say that this is just random luck and that the octopus was probably just picking flags based on which one has more yellow in it. To them I say: octopi are probably color blind. I think it's much more likely it can see around the curvature of spacetime and into the future.

We all love Mel Gibson and his humorous awful misogyny and equal opportunity racism. Even if it did likely cost us a movie where he walked around with a beaver hand puppet and then committed suicide. But for those who didn't like Mel's various affronts to all human decency, would perhaps cute kittens saying his most heinous 20 quotes change your mind? C'mon, forgive him. Look at the beaver movie picture. That goddamn thing has to be allowed come out.

Video of the day

Artists BLU use the mediums of paint, stop-motion animation, and too much free time to surmise the origins of the universe and the end of human life.

I like mine done medium-rare

What with loathed British shitbag Tony Hayward off to the Middle East to beg sheiks for bailout money in a way that doesn't result in him being made to wear a dress and join a harem, BP has been hurting for some really bad news that makes people hate them more. In fact, what with BP sponsoring our love of sky explosions and the baseball combined with this country's gnat-like attention span, the might even be inching their approval rating into that high teens Dick Cheney area.

So really, what's one thing they could do to really surprise and offend us in a new way so as to squander the good will they're getting as a result of spending about as much on PR as they are on the cleanup? Did I hear someone say "burn animals alive"? You know, ones bigger than the turtles? DING DING DING! Bonus points for the man in the back with the magnifying glass, ant-farm, and the sociopath's gaze.

They didn't even cook it right to get the diamond grill marks. Is there no corner they won't cut?

Now I know some of you are saying "How do we know this was BP's fault? How do we know that this whale didn't set itself on fire or swim into a controlled burn area on purpose in order to commit suicide, possibly over a whale romance gone bad?" Ok, valid points. To this I say what if BP set the whale on fire... because it knew too much!

But hell, maybe there is a valid scientific explanation that doesn't legally remonstrate BP for burning a giant sea creature. Science? Anyone from science want to present a plausible alternative theory? I know you're purposefully being kept away from this spill and your solutions are being ignored, so here's your chance to get in there and help.

What's that? A hypercarnivorous giant ancient whale shark that ate smaller whales, you say? I'm sure evolution could have had them develop some sort of rudimentary fire deployment system for cooking their food over the 12 million years since they last existed. Yes, that's clearly what happened here. A new giant species of super whale that's bears some sort of PR grudge against BP. I think we can close the books on this one. BP would never do this, they paid for fireworks one time.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 07.02

Zombie Meat. For when you want a blue peppered jerky snack that makes it seem like you're eating the flesh on a re-animated dead body.

In America Has An Awful News industry news, Adam Serwer goes into detail about how waterboarding moved from being "clearly torture" to "erm..... *clears throat, tugs at collar* a matter.... of.. debate?" in the New York Times during the Bush Administration because of politics and GOP messaging. It turns out that high level journalistic arts requires giving credence to both sides of an issue, even if there aren't two sides and one is just craven ass-covering.

Think Progress compiles a list of Senators who not only have successfully blocked extending unemployment benefits, pretty much the least thing we can do to combat the bad job market, but have also essentially helped block doing anything substantial about jobs. What's so great about this list? They all come from states with double digit unemployment that is much higher than the national average. Hey, when you're trying to sink the economy further to help your electoral prospects in November, you can't be concerned with little things like people or people who elected you.

Now we know why Arizona had to enact that Walking While Latino law. Apparently there are roving gangs of crazed illegal immigrants decapitating law abiding citizens. So says Governor Jan Brewer. Some liberals, media types, Latino groups, and people with common sense say that this is a completely fabricated lie intended to scaremonger about the Mexicanos, but I don't know; illegal Latin guillotine gangs sounds so plausible. Maybe this is a new breed of Mexican coming here searching for a job and a head (or cabesa as they call it). No dice, Pablo, those jobs and heads are ours.

Scientists believe they have found the earliest known form of complex cellular life: weird scallop things that are 2.1 billion years old. Do you know how they figure out how old the organism was? It was carrying an ancient bible and they just added up all the ages of the people inside it.

The Amazing Kreskin has offered up his services to the Pittsburgh Pirates, saying that unless they hire him they'll continue to lose for at least two more years and he'd offer his help to stop their 18-year losing streak. Unless Kreskin can go a solid 7 every five days and keep his ERA under 3 or has some serious gap power, I don't think he can do much for us. Unless he has no ethical qualms about hypnotizing Bob Nutting into committing suicide. Plus, the Bucs would never hire him; they can't lowball him in arbitration or trade him for several middling mentalist prospects.

In Rich People Have Too Much Money news, a Russian billionaire has commissioned an Australian goldsmith to create a $21,000 golden diamond encrusted vuvuzela. *dusts hands off* God, send the meteors, I think we've clearly bottomed out as a society.

Star Wars was right

There is sound in space. Specifically from the sun. So says the University of Sheffield.

Well, it's a little bit Ambient 1: Music for Airports era Eno, but it's still pretty cool. For those of you wanting a translation, the sun is singing "I AM THE SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN!" It's just variations on that definitive declaration of awesomeness.

DIY

So you're concerned about America's energy future. You don't want to continue burning fossil fuels or homeless people's bodies or what ever you're using and you want to go green. But windmills? The sun? This all seems so utterly gay. Isn't there a way you could harness the power of the sun in a way that didn't involve technology you have on your crappy calculator?

Wouldn't it be better if you could create your own sun and subjugate it to your own will so you could.... watch Tivo'd episodes of Law and Order? Isn't that what a God does? Wasn't creating a fusion mini sun what Doc Ock was trying to do in Spider-Man 2? I think we all remember how well that worked out for him. Shouldn't we be able to do this?

Now, thanks to one man's efforts, we may. Home fusion.

Suppes never slows down, moving from one problem to the next with an irrepressible smile. The workshop is a few hundred square feet sub-let from a roboticist friend in a warehouse one floor above a hassidic clothing factory near Bed-Stuy in Brooklyn. "I'm starting from nothing, I mean nothing," says Suppes, "There's no reason I should be doing this. It's ridiculous on all levels." What he's doing is building a Bussard Polywell fusion reactor.

That's from the beginning of a fascinating Gizmodo article on one Mark Suppes and his fusion efforts. Worth your time. The BBC also did a piece on him.

I tell you this because he may solve the world's energy needs, he may fail, and he might succeed but create a new sun somewhere in the vicinity of New York City. Which might be bad. Irregardless, we as a country need more of this behavior. Less people arguing whether or not evolution exists, questioning the scientific consensus on global warming, or even just questioning basic science itself, and more people saying "Fuck it, I'm building a sun in the den. Honey, hold my calls."

Let's get going on the future, people.

Broken in Brief: Scientist ominously says ‘oops’

MIDLAND—It was at 10:15 this morning when Dr. Gerald Jenkins, head of Research and Development at the Dow Chemical Corporation, turned abruptly and knocked a corked beaker full of an unnamed chemical substance off of his workstation and onto the floor, shatter the vial into thousands of pieces and exposing its contents to the world.

After surveying the damage, a shocked and bewildered Jenkins could only be heard to mutter a terse and ominous “…Oops.”

As word of the event and the substance itself spread through the facility, colleagues could only be heard to offer up deep worried gulps, long vacant stares into the distance, and glassy-eyed looks at family portraits.

“Jenkins, huh,” asked co-worker and fellow research chemist Dr. Ellen Dennet. “At 10:15 you say? And it’s 11 now? My, my, my. It wasn’t the blue liquid, was it?”

After being informed that it was, if fact, the blue liquid, Dennet could only use a nearby table to keep herself standing upright before gravely intoning “We never really had a chance then, did we?”

As reports spread that Jenkins had spilled the blue liquid, most seemed resigned to what would happen over the next few agonizing hours. Though some inside still held out hope that internal projections and tests on the liquid would prove to be too pessimistic, offering hope for those living, for now, on the continents closest to the heavily fortified research facility.

For his part, all Jenkins could do was nervously tug around his collar and say “Well…. that’s that. I bet I get blamed for this.”

As of press time, Dr. Jenkins isn’t even going to clean up the broken glass, reportedly stating “There’s no sense in doing things like that….. Not now, anyway.”

Picture of the day

Via the Bad Astronomy blog and NASA's HubbleSite, comes a look at a mysterious black spot on Jupiter that has healed itself up. The oddness? That to create that spot there would have had to have been AN EXPLOSION THE SIZE OF SEVERAL HUNDRED THOUSANDS NUCLEAR BOMBS!!!! KA-BOOM!!! NO one is really sure how it all happened though. Did an asteroid or comet hit it that we didn't see? Are the Jupitarians going through some sort of massive civil war? Did we launch a couple hundred thousand nukes at Jupiter just for shits and giggles?

OK, it was probably an asteroid, but if we didn't see it coming beforehand and aren't totally sure what happened... what's that bode for humanity, Earth, and any possible asteroid that comes hurtling at us? BRUCE WILLIS CAN'T SAVE US IN REAL LIFE! But there we are: space based fiery sky death could even be more sudden and unexpected than we previously thought. Sweet dreams! Just kidding, we'll definitely have killed ourselves off before any space rock gets a chance. Sweet dreams!

Click to embiggen.

Science for kids

So you've been wondering how to explain to your kids the wonders of science and how a bunch of scientists on the French/Swiss border are going to open up a black hole, ending life as we know it in a vainglorious attempt to kill God. Do you attempt to dumb down some heady scientific text on the Large Hadron Collider? Do you hope that some shred of scientific fact is allowed onto major network TV or cable news? Or do you just wait for the episode where Elmo and the Cookie Monster explain Higgs-Boson particles and superconductors?

Well wait no more. In an attempt to explain the Large Hadron Collider to kids.... and essentially every adult without a physics degree, Emma Sanders and Anton Radevsky have written Voyage to the Heart of Matter, a pop-up book that explains the LHC, it's layout, the various machines, and exactly in what detail science plans to kill our Creator.

And just in case the little monster you've spawned tries to slam your efforts to enlighten their dumb ass with some business about the book not getting the sheer magnitude of the machines right, you just tell that wretched shrieking creature that "The scale of the particle accelerator and various machines within the book is exact, you awful little shit. Now shut up and learn about science or I'll lock you in the cupboard again."

Cheap Blogging Crutch 06.04

Portland artist Alexander Rokoff painted a portrait of Modest Mouse frontman Issac Brock... standing in front of a boar whist wearing lederhosen. This is not that important, except for the part where it now hangs in the office of the mayor of the city of Portland, Oregon. Eat it, Eric Judy and Jeremiah Green!

Sean's off on a street corner, preaching from the bible he wrote and looking for "converts", so it falls to me to recount the things that happened today that weren't related to oil being everywhere. That doesn't leave much, so there's some oil stuff in here too. Fuck you if you don't like it.

Local Pittsburgh politician and future victim of having trash dumped on his lawn, Councilman Matt Drozd, has a bright idea for the Stanley Cup finals going on right now between Philadelphia and Chicago: he wants people in Pittsburgh to root for Philly based on some arcane tax revenue/yay Pennsylvania reasons. After my urge to stab him subsided, I decided to honor the Flyers in much the way I'm sure they did when the Pens were in the Finals the past two years... but then I decided against urinating on myself while decrying a league wide conspiracy against my team. Fuck you Drozd and don't ever suggest -even in jest- that we root for anything to happen to Philadelphia besides some epically Biblical smiting.

Let's check the score on BP and celebrities. Listened to Kevin Costner? Check. Listened to James Cameron? That's a negatory good buddy, with BP turning down the director/undersea documentarian's help in providing access to underwater equipment/technicians. Cameron responded by saying "those morons don't know what they're doing" and referred to BP's handling of access to video and the site as "asking the perpetrator to give you the video of the crime scene". Uh-oh, looks like I know who the thinly veiled, subtle as a sledgehammer, mustache twirling villains of Avatar 2 are going to be. Hurts, doesn't it, neocons?

In "Democracy" news, Diebold, the crooked, politically active, former makers of easily hacked and zero paper trail voting machines, had to pay $25 million to the SEC to settle a fraud case. The SEC will continue to pursue criminal charges against three of Diebold's executives. Gee, if this is the way they handle their books and their accounting, it really warms your heart to think about the way they handled all those voting machines.

In "This is how the world works" news, a recent lawsuit that attempted to sue pretty much every energy company for creating emissions and global warming conditions that helped exacerbate Hurricane Katrina -effectively a trial on global warming- will not be allowed to continue. Why? because so many of the judges on the 16 judge appeals court panel had to recuse themselves because of "conflicts of interest" with the energy companies, that no true majority opinion can be reached and thus the case cannot proceed. So that makes it pretty much all three branches of government that are completely entwined with private interests. I was worried it was only two.

A study recently published by two UCLA economics professors showed a surprisingly political effects between "nudging" people about energy conservation -i.e. providing energy saving tips as well as information on electricity usage to households- and energy consumption. Those who were registered Democrats who received the "nudges" tended to cut consumption by 3-6%. But those who were registered Republicans actually increased consumption as a result of the "nudges". They essentially scientifically showed that conservatives would actively act out against their own interests if they received what they perceived as a "liberal"/"pussy environmentalist" message on it. For further evidence of this phenomenon, I submit the past two decades in US politics.

Finally we close with the best orangutan/hound-dog buddy video of the week. Caution: you might overdose on cute and go into catatonic "Awwwwwww" shock.

Feel like shitting yourself?

via the NYT's Green blog, The National Center for Atmospheric Research has a predictive model for where all that oil is going to go. Hint: the Atlantic seaboard.

Now they coach their model with "it's not peer reviewed" and "it's merely a projection", but I'd like to commence pants shitting and proclamations about the ruination of all sea life and beach going on the eastern coast of America. Not to get reactionary or anything.

Commence happy smile time:

TB Science Corner

via the Big Picture blog's Saturn: That Ringed Bitch series.

Because I'm tired of cataloging the ways in which our society moves backwards.

Third time’s a charm, Congress passes science act
Ho ho, finally Democrats figured out a way so that Congress could vote on a bill that creates growth, creates jobs, and provides much needed funding to science and technology, but also not prove they're all sex obsessed fiends who love government employees looking at porn. Because when it comes down to voting for scientific advancement in this country or voting against scientific advancement because some cheap procedural trick made you susceptible to "pro-porn" attack ads, our elected betters will always choose to hamper our future. At least they found a way around it... this time.

BP OK's test of Costner's oil-cleaning device
Yes, the celebrities will finally be allowed to save us. Costner's machine, which separates 97% of oil from water and can do 210,000 gallons of water a day, will be allowed to be tested in the Gulf. I think this marks the first cleanup attempt that will not involve spraying the most harmful chemicals, or improperly setting up booms, or pumping mud, trash, and golf balls into the sea in order to slow the oil. If you're counting at home, that makes it one outside idea that's being listened to. And why not, it looks like BP has a handle on this whole thing.

Hubble Watches as Star Slowly Devours Planet
And you thought the Hubble was just for science. No, it's for perversely watching the death of planets many, many light years away. In this case a sun slowly devouring a planet over 10 million years. Of course we won't get 10 million years of "Ahh, ahhh, we put our tip in the sun again", it'll just a few seconds of "Hey.... did the sun just get fifty billion times larger and start expanding this way at a rapid rate? No, I'm not fucking around." and then we'll be immediately incinerated. That is if our society can last for another couple billion years. It's not looking good. One century at a time, civilization, one century at a time.

What is the Air Force doing with space?
Without even reading the article, I'm going to guess... militarize it. Yup, *pumps fist* I was right. But the Bad Astronomy blog looks into the Air Force and the mysterious Mach 6 hitting X-51A and the even more mysterious X-37 B "Flying Twinkie". At least one of the sectors of government is committed to making the ship technology of Battlestar Galactica a reality.

Quantum teleportation achieved over 16 km
Good news if you're a photon and you need to get information to another photon 16km away. You can now teleport it instead of calling or e-mailing it. I going to take a wild stab at this and say we're literally a few weeks away from Verizon and Comcast handing out Quantum Entangled Particle cards for our cell phones and internet connections so we can text and download porn instantaneously.The future is here, people.

The military got gayed

After months of promises and years of work, finally a compromise has been reached that will allow gay men and women to serve in the US military. This is, of course, the end of the world. Now we'll have gays all up and down our armed forces... something that has never before occurred in the history of combat or something. They'll be in there, translating things into and from Farsi and Arabic... in a gay way. They'll be gaying up combat, shooting terrorists all gay like. They'll be wearing sequined camo, talking about how such and such a tank is faaaabulous. A tank is not fabulous, it is a machine of war!

Because this is terrible and the end of US military dominance or something, the usual suspects have been out in full force to tell us how Obama just ended the world in a hellstorm of ultra gay fire. I think you'll be surprised in the direction they took this.

During a radio broadcast, Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association explained:

So Hitler himself was an active homosexual. And some people wonder, didn't the Germans, didn't the Nazis, persecute homosexuals? And it is true they did; they persecuted effeminate homosexuals. But Hitler recruited around him homosexuals to make up his Stormtroopers, they were his enforcers, they were his thugs. And Hitler discovered that he could not get straight soldiers to be savage and brutal and vicious enough to carry out his orders, but that homosexual solders basically had no limits and the savagery and brutality they were willing to inflict on whomever Hitler sent them after. So he surrounded himself, virtually all of the Stormtroopers, the Brownshirts, were male homosexuals.

And here you thought the main objection from religious types and social conservatives was that gays were too weak and girly to be in the military. Some terrorist would come over the horizon and a gay soldier would shriek like a woman, throw his purse at the enemy, and then spring out of the bunker to strike at the enemy with limp wrists, screaming "You brute!"

Nope. Turns out gays were not only the backbone of the Nazi party, the Nazi war machine, and the Nazi SS, but they were in fact too brutal and savage. So violent and unhinged that we can never let them serve. I'll say this: he might have got his history completely wrong and tried to tie gays and Nazis together in one of the most ugly ways possible, but at least he moved his stereotypes forward a little bit from a foppish, effeminate caricature to some sort of overly manly savage killer. That's... a kind of progress.

The kind of progress the Family Research Council was not ready for.

On a conference call with reporters today, FRC Senior Fellow for Policy Studies Peter Sprigg delivered the results of what he said was the first-ever study of "homosexual assault" in the military.
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"We are today releasing an analysis of publicly available documents which show that homosexuals in the military are three times more likely to commit sexual assaults than heterosexuals are relative to their numbers," Sprigg said. "We believe this problem would only increase if the current law against homosexuality...were to be repealed."
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"If open homosexuality was permitted in the military, these numbers can only increase," Sprigg said. "The number of homosexuals would grow, the threat of discharge for homosexual behavior would be eliminated and protected class status for homosexuals would make victims hesitant to report assaults and make commanders hesitant to punish them for fear of appearing homophobic."

That's right. Repealing DADT will turn the military into some internal gay rape factory, where innocent straight men are wantonly raped by gays and are afraid to report it because the gays have been made emperors of the armed forces. And he backed it up with a completely scientific study that I'm sure would stand up to scrutiny from an independent, outside source.

So I think you can see the clear case for why this is the end of the world. Stripping DADT will not allow men and women to proudly serve this country openly and without fear of discharge. No, it'll create the gay rape SS. Do we really want that?

Comic of the day

Among my many anti-science pet peeves is the seemingly increasing ignorant din over getting kids immunized. Or should I say, not getting kids immunized. So the story goes that in order to protect kids, they should not be vaccinated. Why? Because they'll get The Autism. So ironically in communities where this kind of thinking takes hold, vaccination rates drop, herd immunity is weakened, and kids start dying of easily preventable diseases.

The anti-vaccine nonsense stems almost entirely from a fraudulent study from a British doctor by the name of Andrew Wakefield. A man named Darryl Cunningham decided to tell the tale of Wakefield in comic form. Here is the first panel of the epic strip. Go check the rest out.

I'll note that the story has a happy ending. Last week Wakefield was found guilty of serious professional misconduct and of acting in a "dishonest", "misleading" and "irresponsible" manner by the General Medical Council of England. He was struck off the GMC register, which is essentially the British medical equivalent of being disbarred.

On the negative side, he's still allowed to spout his nonsense, having retreated to Texas (obviously) to set up his base of operations for what he calls "educating" but is more like "getting kids killed from easily preventable diseases." And he's still making appearances on TV as an "expert", hitting NBC Today on Monday. Yay America.

It begins...

Few weeks back we made sport of the Georgia state senate for passing a bill banning microchip implantation without prior consent. You may remember it as part of our Mock The South For Any And All Reasons series. Well it turns out that perhaps we were too hasty in our giggling, snorting, and pointing. You see, the Georgia lawmakers blinkered fear on UN black helicopters, microchip implants, and Muslims in the White House may have prevented an epidemic. Well, if anyone actually had microchip implants. Let me explain.

A British scientist says he is the first man in the world to become infected with a computer virus.

Dr Mark Gasson from the University of Reading contaminated a computer chip which was then inserted into his hand. The device, which enables him to pass through security doors and activate his mobile phone, is a sophisticated version of ID chips usedto tag pets.

In trials, Dr Gasson showed that the chip was able to pass on the computer virus to external control systems. If other implanted chips had then connected to the system they too would have been corrupted, he said.

I think you see where this is going. Bible Shit. 666. The End Times. One of the things that can be easily interpreted as being the loosely defined Mark of the Beast. Not only are these microchip implants against what God wants, assuming God is a dowdy technophobe, like we always assume he is, but now they can carry viruses much like we can carry viruses... turning doors and mobile phones against us. The beginnings of the robot war.

I always knew doors would be the first to turn on us. One of man's oldest friends, now an enemy. It's the hinges, I never trusted the hinges. The locking mechanisms always seemed a bit evil as well. I'm not surprised about the cell phones, they've already been trying to kill us with the brain tuor causing radiation.

But there we are: the world's first man infected by a computer virus and virus carrying microchip implants. If Satan is a hacker, this is how he's going to get us all. We all wear his "mark", naively hinking that this will make our lives easier. Beelzebub hacks the global mainframe, turning doors, cell phones, credit card swiping spots at grocery stores, and EZ Pass lanes against us. Robot War and Biblical Armageddon rolled into one. Do you see how I've combined these fears? If I could only find a way to work in zombies.....

So a hearty apology to Georgia. You weren't just baselessly reacting to imaginary fears. You had the foresight to recognize this problem. By the way: The South being ahead of the curve on an issue of technology? Sign of the Apocalypse. I'm just sayin'...

Maths + science

Both Sean and I here are big supporters of education, science, math, and various other things that can loosely be defined as "uppity book shit". Why? Because we've been bought off by Big Book and Big Knowledge. We're huge whores, what can we say?

So we often try to highlight the large Texas sections Texas of this Texas country Texas where people Texans are trying Texas to undermine science and facts, and monkey with our basic educational system. That said, we also know when well intentioned educators are doing things wrong as well. After all, there's a right way to educate and a wrong way to educate. Let's see if you can point out where this next fellow went wrong. Show your work.

The Secret Service investigated an Alabama high school teacher for using the example of shooting President Obama while teaching a geometry lesson.
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A student in the class described the lesson: "He was talking about angles and said, 'If you're in this building, you would need to take this angle to shoot the president.'"

The district superintendent told the News that the unnamed teacher will not be disciplined.

Where do you think the teacher went wrong? Clearly he wasn't accounting for wind resistance, any teleprompters in the way, or podium height. At least he had the decency to cross Medgar Evers' name off this old lesson plan and fill in a new darkie. Gotta make the lessons current, otherwise the kids will never pay attention.

Lest you think we'll just paint Alabama and the South with the same finger wagging brush, we'll have you know that both Sean and I consider this to be progress. In the entirety of this man's lesson he did not once refer to mathematics as "that durned numerical witchcraft", attempt to cast Pythagoras as a heretic, or petition the state to bring back the cubit as a unit of measurement. He even taught the assassination lesson in an unsegregated class. I think you'll agree that this is remarkable progress for not only Alabama, but Southern education as a whole.

So if you're in the Jefferson County area and want to drop in on Corner High School, you might just learn something. Like, say, the chemistry teacher teaching the proper gasoline to frozen orange juice concentrate measurements for homemade napalm in case that pesky local IRS building keeps infuriating you or the English Department's curriculum guidelines for their Turner Diaries unit. If you stick around, you might just get to enjoy the Phys Ed Department's George Wallace themed Field Day wheelchair races.

For the kids

You know, it's been a while since we've openly mocked our elected betters in Washington for nakedly playing politics with important issues. It must be a few days now since we've done it. But we can only mock them when they give us fresh material. I mean we can't make the stuff up, right? I mean sure, I'd love for our legislative branch to somehow combine politicizing education, disrespect for the sciences, needlessly harming kids, actively trying to dumb down future generations, and add in massive dashes of cheap legislative tricks, political cowardice, and a healthy dose of repressed sexual puritanism, but that kind of stuff just doesn't happen everyday.

Wait. In 3... 2... 1...

In an example of Republican obstructionism rendered beautiful by its simplicity, the GOP yesterday killed a House bill that would increase funding for scientific research and math and science education by forcing Democrats to vote in favor of federal employees viewing pornography.
...
In this case, Republicans included a provision that would bar the federal government from paying the salaries of employees who've been disciplined for viewing pornography at work.

To proceed with the bill and bring it to a final vote, Democrats would have had to vote against the motion to recommit, and against the porn ban.

But they didn't have the stomach for it, and 121 Democrats jumped ship and voted with Republicans to kill the bill.

Eat it kids. "It" being 'Waste or excrement from the digestive tract that is formed in the intestine and expelled through the rectum'. You'd know about that whole process as well as the basic digestive process that would happen after you ate 'it'... if you didn't just have your science and biology curriculum needlessly fucked with by adults, that is. Well, legally they're adults, but in reality they're more childish than you'll ever be my dear, sweet, stupid, stupid children.

Ideally the bill is still able to be brought back up for a vote, but who knows what amendments supporting funds for the perverted arts, motions to support the rape of everyone's mother, and efforts to tack on riders that give away home makeovers and manicures to child murderers will have to be dealt with so that our children will not regress into fearing the fire orb in the sky and eating mud.

Wonderful. In order to look like they don't support the porn, our elected betters choose to support dicking over kids and education, all the while not actually doing anything to make themselves look less like conscienceless assholes and getting nothing done. I think that is the textbook definition of a win-win-win-win scenario. So good we have adults in Washington tackling the important issues in a serious manner.

What could possibly go wrong?

Even though the Gulf oil spill is still occurring, clean-up efforts are already underway. Now if there was one phrase you wanted to hear about this massive environmental undertaking, what would it be? Well, if you were hoping for "Hey, let's dump millions of gallons of this dangerous toxic oil dispersant into the water" have I got some good news for you.

British Petroleum and government disaster-relief agencies are using a toxic chemical to disperse oil in the Gulf of Mexico, even though a better alternative appears to be available.

As the Deepwater Horizon oil spill spreads, BP and the U.S. Coast Guard have conducted tests with Corexit 9500, a chemical designed to break oil slicks into globules that are more quickly consumed by bacteria or sink into the water column before hitting shore.

The decision has been a controversial one. A few scientists think dispersants are mostly useful as public relations strategy, as they make the oil slick invisible, even though oil particles continue to do damage. Others consider Corexit the lesser of two evils: It’s known to be highly toxic, adding to the harm caused by oil, but at least it will concentrate damage at sea, sparing sensitive and highly productive coastal areas. Better to sacrifice the deep sea than the shorelines.

But even as these arguments continue, with 230,000 gallons of Corexit on tap and more commissioned by BP, a superior alternative could be left on the shelf.

Ooh, they even referenced a decision to avoid using a superior alternative. That's the happy cousin to "let's dump millions of gallons of this dangerous toxic oil dispersant into the water". What is this superior alternative? It's called Dispersit and is EPA approved. In testing, Corexit was 54.7 percent effective at breaking down crude oil from the Gulf and Dispersit was 100 percent effective. In addition, Corexit is three times as lethal to silverfish and two times as lethal to shrimp. Good thing those aren't important things to the Gulf ecosystem or Gulf economy.

On the other hand -as I'm sure we'll find out- the makers of Corexit probably gave more money to our elected betters than the makers of Dispersit did. Scientists agree that money to politicians is the most effective measure of effectiveness in an oil dispersal product. Plus, Corexit is a more deftly handled oil clean-up related pun than Dispersit.

So if the only environmental and ecological hope you were clinging on to was "Well, at least we probably aren't making things worse", well.... we'll get back to you. But it doesn't look good.